Nicholas Stuart is a columnist with the Canberra Times.
Nick Stuart has written three books,
Kevin Rudd: An Unauthorised Political Biography;
What Goes Up: Behind the 2007 Election; and
Rudd's Way: November 2007 - June 2010.

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

THE LIBERAL SOUL

The real problem Tony Abbott's having is that this isn't a truly liberal government.

This column for the Canberra Times examines the grab bag of policies that was the budget . . . and why it doesn't compute.

THE CENTRE

Robert Menzies chose wisely when
deciding on a name for his new political party. Earlier he’d led the United
Australia Party, a successor of Billy Hughes’ Nationalist Party, which itself
included elements of both Labor and Fusion (a combination of Protectionists and
Anti-socialists). Confused? That’s exactly why Menzies chose the name “Liberal
Party”. After all, who isn’t liberal? It sounds so sensible. A little
progressive but neither obliged to capitalists or locked to the workers. In
essence a reasonable, middle-of-the-road, compromise; the sort of thing everyone
could vote for. That’s why we did.

Although not formed until 1945,
the Liberals have held government longer than any other party and provided our
two longest-serving PM’s – Menzies and John Howard – as well as the current
one. Communism’s collapsed, the alliance between workers and social
progressives bankrupt, and free-enterprise capitalism is the ideology of
choice. Tony Abbott’s in power
nationally with Liberal Premiers in five states and one territory (South
Australia and the ACT are the odd ones out). Theoretically, the party should be
on top of the world. So why have things gone belly-up?

The explanation isn’t just
technical incompetence. Attempts to explain away bad polling by insisting policy
hasn’t been ‘sold’ properly won’t wash. Joe Hockey’s to blame, but not simply
because the budget narrative hasn’t been explained to voters. Hockey is, of
course, hopeless. First the cigar, then the book . . . but these things always
run in three’s so I can’t wait for whatever’s coming next. It’s bound to be a doozy!

Yet Hockey’s incompetence alone
can’t explain the full extent of the failure and that’s what’s so troubling for
the government. Inconsistency resides at the heart of this budget. It lacks
intellectual coherence. Why? Precisely because it’s not genuinely liberal.
Instead of arising out of the centre of mainstream liberalism it displays a
pastiche of special pleading, ideological dogmatism and, most critically, a
rush to change the world and impose radical solutions that are anything but
moderate in their outcome. In other words, Abbott’s problem is fundamental.
This is not a truly “liberal” government – its agenda is confused. The problem
isn’t dogma; it’s inconsistency. The contradictions lie deeply embedded in the
party and are ripping his government apart.

This is why Hockey can’t sell the
budget; can’t even work out how to salvage bits of it. His problem is it doesn’t
hang together logically.

Take young Christopher Pyne’s
changes to education. Is the rationale behind the savaging of universities and
bolstering of private schooling to, (a) give more people the chance to become
barista’s after studying at crappy universities? (b) To give fewer people the
chance to become barristers after studying at great universities? Or simply,
(c) a cheaper education system so the government can hand out huge tax cuts at
the next election? There is no correct answer to the question because there’s
no coherent strategy behind the cut.

Take Social Services Minister Kevin
Andrews’ marriage guidance counselling advice. For a start the poor bloke
doesn’t really understand how imbedded bias underlies and skews his every thought.
He insists, for example, that de-facto couples are more likely to separate –
even though his own government says “data [is] not yet available on the relative incidence
of separation and divorce in cohabiting and married couples that have children”.
Rather than deal intellectually with the problem Andrews imposes his own
ideology onto complex issues without regard to the facts. Much easier to make
them up as you go along. But the essence of his failure is it’s born of the
dogma that insists marriage is the solution to marriage breakdown. This is
ridiculous and, because he wants to impose particular structures onto individual
decision-making, is fundamentally illiberal. Instead of representing the core
values upon which Menzies built his party, Andrews approaches issues of
personal choice from a prescriptive, blinkered and doctrinaire position.

To complete the three stooges, let’s drag out Health
Minister Peter Dutton. His deadpan humor is always worth seeing, so try and
catch one of his sold-out shows in a hospital near you before the reshuffle
intervenes. It’s terrific watching him attempt to explain why money needs to be
taken from pensioners now to research disease in the future (if you want to see
him squirm ask, “which diseases in particular” before following up with “and
how, exactly, will such funds be allocated”). Selling this idea should be easy
– but in order to do so you need to begin from firm foundations. Start by
deciding how much money is needed for research – not from the vague idea that
people need to be discouraged from going to the doctor. Then get accurate stats.
Understand exactly how many times people visit their GP a year and why. Don’t
go off half-cocked arguing with incorrect facts, because it exposes the real
agenda behind the new fee. It’s designed to penalize people visiting doctors
and to keep the poor away.

This is why neither Abbott nor
Hockey is capable of finding a way to negotiate this budget through the Senate.
Ask them what’s non-negotiable and they really don’t know. That’s because the
budget’s a collection of wish-lists compiled without any underlying world-view.
This remains the most disturbing element of the current government. It’s not
that it’s ideologically driven; the problem is that every minister’s driving
off in a different direction. Hockey thinks his job is just to wave the
chequered flag: he’s only now waking up to the fact that it’s his responsibility
to fuel the engines. Abbott’s only now understanding that his job is to make
sure everyone’s heading in the same direction. They’re not. The path should be
in accordance with the fundamental values of the party. But what, prey tell,
are these?